The 8 stages of this total mess of a play in Vandy-Notre Dame

A blow-by-blow of something I’ve never quite seen before.

Presenting this complete mess of a play from the second quarter of Week 3’s Vanderbilt-Notre Dame game in South Bend, where the Commodores trailed 13-0:

In the official play log, nothing here looks all that weird:

Shurmur,Kyle pass complete to Tennyson, Donaven for 20 yards to the ND1, fumble forced by GILMAN, Alohi, fumble by Tennyson, Donaven recovered by ND LOVE, Julian at ND0, touchback.

A fumble at the 1, recovered by the defense in the end zone, leading to a touchback. Fine. But this is why sometimes you have to watch the sport and not read a play-by-play list.

Let’s run through the various stages of this wreck.

1. The pitch and catch. Nothing’s wrong when Kyle Shurmur finds Donaven Tennyson in the middle of the field, about 2.5 yards in front of the Notre Dame end zone.

2. The struggle. Everything’s reasonably OK here, too. Tennyson still has the biscuit.

3. The volcanic eruption of a fumble is where things start to go left. Irish safety Alohi Gilman basically crowbars the ball out of Tennyson’s arms and shoots it skyward.

4. The jumpball.

Notre Dame never was known for its rebounding. The Irish have always been more of a three-point-shooting team anyway.

5. The brief moment where a Vanderbilt player appears poised to score a touchdown anyway, and maybe things will be OK for the Dores:

6. Except, well ...

7. Damn, he’s almost got it.

8. Nope.

And that’s a touchback, courtesy of the Irish’s Julian Love.

Seems like a pretty good tell that this was never going to be Vandy’s day.